US-style university fees under spotlight

University fees are set to rise in the next few years

Higher Education minister Margaret Hodge has met American education experts to hear how their system of charging university students works.

The meeting was organised by The Sutton Trust, an education charity.

Its chairman, Peter Lampl, said British people were going to have to get used to the idea of borrowing money to pay for university education.

He said a change of culture was needed in the direction of the American model, where borrowing money and accumulating debt is part of the system.

Funding debate

The UK Government is due to publish its long-delayed student and university finance proposals for England in January.

Debate has raged around how ministers will go about asking students for more - whether up front via higher fees, after their degree in the form of loans or a graduate tax, or a combination of pre- and post-graduation payments.

Mrs Hodge indicated earlier this month that undergraduates and their families could have to pay "tuition costs" amounting to the full state subsidy of £5,000 a year.

Mrs Hodge's meeting was with Governor Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, which sets the SAT ability tests taken by high school students before they apply to university.

'More education'

Governor Caperton refused to talk about what they discussed, but did stress that top US universities ensured poor students who met their entry conditions had the money to take their places, from a combination of scholarships, grants, loans and jobs.

"In the world we live in, you have to have more education than less to get a good job," he added.

British universities say they need £10bn extra to make up for two decades of under-funding.

Americans have been borrowing more since the 1980s to pay for education as the value of government grants has declined.

Unsubsidised loans - from both state and private sources - have grown to meet the rising cost of fees, which have outpaced inflation by 38% in the last decade.